Out Of The Borders Cinema
“We are told that women are not worthy because of their body.”
In the movie, the five main world religions, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam are represented by the women that are telling their story. US-American author Deborah Feldman who left the New York City Hasidic Jew community, Somali psychotherapist Leyla Hussein underwent genital mutilation as a child and fights against this practice, Japanese manga artist Rokudenashiko, who was arrested because of her work featuring female genitalia, Bavarian scholar Doris Wagner, a former nun, reported publicly on the experiences of abuse in a spiritual community in Rome and Vithika Yadav, who works as a sex education publisher in Delhi. The film is not about faith or God’s belief but it is about a patriarchal system sustained and supported by religion. “It is very important to me to that the movie would not attack religion, because believing and faith is a very personal thing and for example in the protagonist stories, the former nun says that nowadays she believes even stronger in God.”
Leyla Hussein in Kenya
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“When I found the texts of these five holy books
(of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism), I decided to take this as a guideline.” She was searching for five women from these five religions. Important in this was that they would really dare to talk about the female sexuality and what it is to be a woman to break these taboos and that they really know that how dangerous or hard it can be. Through other people, Barbara Miller found these five brave women. All of them already had made this step in public and they knew how the reactions can be. “When I met these women, there was a big cultural difference with them, but I felt that we all are fighting for the same thing. It was very beautiful how from the very first meeting we had a good connection with this five women and they all agreed to participate.”
The filming process took all together five years.
For Miller, it was important to show the stories and women in their own environment, so she followed the protagonists in their life and culture. That’s when she also followed Layla Hussein to Kenya to a meeting about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which was the most touching moment for her. There were men and
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